


Advent XXIX

by Tammany



Series: Assorted Advent Stories, Christmas 2014, All-sorts, some connected. [31]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Lullabies, World Peace, cranky baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:55:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2835464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little Em won't sleep. Mycroft's beset with Internationals with dependency issues. Anthea's sick of Christmas carols.</p><p>That's all right--let it be.</p><p>Quiet, sweet, more character development and interaction than anything. And I like Mycroft with babies. What can I say?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent XXIX

“Hush, baby, hush,” Mary whispered, rocking back and forth in a chair she’d pulled up by the last lingering embers of the Yule log burning in the fireplace. “Hush, lovie, hush.”

The room was dim, lit only by those last glowing coals. Baby Em cranked and fussed, and grabbed at her mother’s face, apparently finding her drooping forelock a meagre distraction from her own weary frustration. “Ma. Mama. Ma-aah.”

“Yes, sweetie. Mama,” Mary said. She was almost sure these days that when Em said “Mama,” she generally actually did mean her mother, and that when she said, “Dada,” she meant John. It was still a bit hard to tell…

So many vowel sounds, she thought, exhausted and wishing with all her heart that the child would go to sleep…or even look likely to. Em crooned nonsense babble for hours on end. Mamamama, babababa, lololo, eebeeebeeeeeee. It reminded Mary of her teen hours in choir and chorus: scales without end. Mi-may-ma-mo-mi-may-ma-mo-mu. Fi-fay-fa-fo-fu.

She untangled Em’s fingers and wrestled her back into the turn of her arm, trying to still her wriggling. “Shhh. I’ll sing, all right, Em? Lullaby, love.” She closed her eyes, and found a Christmas lullaby.

_Lully lulla, thou little tiny child_

_Bye-bye lullly, lullay._

_Good sisters to, how may we do_

_For to preserve this day,_

_This poor youngling, for whom we do sing,_

_Bye-bye lully, lullay._

“Such a creepy song to sing a baby,” Anthea’s voice said, from the shadows. “Herod the king and all that. Who sings to babies about how the local scumbag vassal king wants to kill them?”

Mary sighed. “ _You_ think of something, then,” she said. “She won’t sleep and I’m afraid if she starts screaming she’ll have everyone up.”

“I’m no singer,” Anthea said, but slipped into the room and sat on the floor, back pressed against the sofa frame. She piled chestnuts into the roasting pan and propped it over the hottest embers, then leaned forward and took two small split logs from the wood basket. She scraped a secondary nest of embers together, raked the sharp edges of the logs together to raise loose wood, then propped them over the heat, too, with plenty of air flow. “I can hum along,” she said, then, grudgingly. “What about ‘Silent Night’?”

Mary nodded, and hummed a note, waiting for Anthea to hum it back to her, before she began, softly.

_Silent night, holy night,_

_All is calm, all is bright_

_Round yon Virgin—Mother and Child,_

_Holy infant so tender and mild,_

_Sleep in heavenly peace,_

_Sleep in heavenly peace._

Aaaa-ah-ah. Mmmnah. Pa-pa.

The two women sighed.

“No peace, then,” Mary said. “She thinks it’s a sing-along.”

“Must not be enough of a holy virgin,” Anthea said. “Makes all the difference, apparently.”

Mary snorted. “If’d I’d only known,” she said. “Not that I’d have cared when I gave it up. Wasn’t planning on kids, then.” She gave a crooked grin. “Wasn’t sure I’d get kids now—not this late. I kind of thought John and I were going to have a lot of fun—and nothing come of it, if you get my drift.”

Anthea shrugged. “Can’t ever be sure.” She shook the chestnut pan. Then, softly, she sang, “Entre le bœuf et l'âne gris, dort, dort, dort le petit fils. Mille anges divins, mille séraphins, volent à l'entour de ce grand Dieu d'amour.”

“You’re French?”

“No. Spent one mission passing as a French nun.”

“Really?” Mary sounded amused and fascinated. “That must have been quite a mission.”

“I called it the ‘mission from God.’”

“And I never forgave you,” Mycroft said, voice both laughing and scolding. “Atrocious joke. Simply atrocious.”

“Hey, anything about that one that raised a smile, I was all for it,” Anthea said. She poured the chestnuts into a waiting bowl, reloaded the pan and set it back over the embers, and then held the full bowl up to her boss. “Here. Nuts for a nut. What are you doing up? I thought you and himself fled off to your room for the night.”

“Phone call,” he said, glum. He settled on an ottoman and scooped up a handful of chestnuts, hissing at the heat. He made a cradle out of his robe, between his knees, and quickly dropped the chestnuts in. “I may be flying out tomorrow. The Pentagon can’t solve its own problems without its hand held, apparently.” He sighed heavily. “I couldn’t sleep, after, so I got up to have a drink here, so at least Greg could.”

All three were silent. After awhile Mary said, forlornly. “Stop thinking at me. They’re not _my_ team any more. It’s not my fault they’re all crazy.” She fended off Em’s grabby little hands as the child burrowed into her robe. “She’s apparently hungry,” she said. “You’ll have to excuse me.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, it’s not anything I haven’t seen before,” Mycroft grumbled. “I’m gay, not naïve. If you’re modest, just grab one of the throws.”

Mary snorted, but did as suggested. Soon little Em was silent, but for sloppy sounds of nursing.

“It is your fault, anyway,” Mycroft said, teasingly. “If you’d stayed there would be at least one sane person. QED. It’s your fault that they’re all mad as hatters.”

“No,” Mary replied, firmly. “If I’d stayed I’d be mad myself—or dead. Your proof is flawed, Mr. Holmes.”

“Hmph,” he grumbled. His clever fingers cracked open the shells of the chestnuts and flaked away the papery inner coat. He popped on in his mouth. “Very well. _Absolvo te_. Go in peace.”

“You, too,” she said.

“No. If it’s peace, I get to stay,” Mycroft said…and sighed again.

“What are the odds,” Anthea said.

“Mosad, Iraq, the Saudis, ISIS and the Americans are all involved,” he said. “You tell me.”

She gave the pan of nuts over the embers a sharp, aggressive shake.

Mary, rocking her child, murmured gloomily. “Is it really too much to ask for peace?”

“It’s always too much to ask for peace,” Anthea snapped. “It’s not like any of the main players really want it, after all.” She sighed, and again, in a rough voice, sang. As she did, Mycroft’s voice joined hers—more trained and controlled, the tenor, though softened so as not to carry, resonating with the Middle Eastern minor falls and ornamentation.

 

_[Shalom alechem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalom_alechem) malache ha-sharet malache elyon,_

 

_mi-melech malche ha-melachim Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu._

 

_Bo'achem le-shalom malache ha-shalom malache elyon,_

 

_mi-melech malche ha-melachim Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu._

 

_Barchuni le-shalom malache ha-shalom malache elyon,_

 

_mi-melech malche ha-melachim Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu._

 

_Tzet'chem le-shalom malache ha-shalom malache elyon,_

 

_mi-melech malche ha-melachim Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu._

 

Mary said, “I know that one. ‘Peace be upon you, ministering angels, messengers of the most High…’”

“I learned it from my counterpart in Mossad one slow summer,” Anthea said. She craned her neck at Mycroft.

He shrugged. “Picked up Hebrew one summer at uni, for a lark,” he said. “It seemed a shame not to go to synagogue.”

Anthea snorted. “You—you’re so annoying. ‘Picked Hebrew up for a lark.’ Brat.”

“The brat is—“

“My dear child,” Mary cut in. “The one who’s keeping me up all night. Really, Mycroft, I knew Sherlock irks you. But you might stop baiting him in your own way. Isn’t there anything you’re willing to admit you like about him? Openly, I mean, not while pretending to be snotty as a Siamese asked to chum around with a poodle.” She eased Em out from under the drape of the throw and shifted, her, once again tossing the folds of cloth over for modesty.

“I’m quite fond of my brother,” Mycroft sniffed.

“Mmmm-hmmm. I know. You just refuse to stop pecking at him.”

“It’s mutual.”

“So? You’re the smart one—you know it takes two. Really….not one thing you’re willing to praise?”

Mycroft sighed, and grumbled, then said, more gently, “Well. Sherlock won me this evening, in any case. Confounded them so badly they didn’t start making demands until after the important things were done. I’ll be grateful to him for life for that.”

“See?” she said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it.”

He laughed softly, and stuck his tongue out at her. “Agony. You have no notion.”

“No,” she said, smiling. “I probably don’t. Growing up with Sherlock must have been a trial.”

“But he was a very dear baby,” he said, sounding wistful. “I remember him at her age.”

“You do?” Mary asked. “How old were you?”

“When he was one? Eight, going on nine.”

“That’s quite a gap.”

“Mmmmm.”

She nodded. She started humming again. Anthea growled.

“No. Not ‘Still, still, still.”

“It’s beautiful,” Mary said.

“I don’t care. I’m up to my eyebrows in Christmas music.”

They were silent. The fire crackled. Anthea served up more chestnuts, and put another pan on. Mycroft went to the library and brought back a bottle of scotch, pouring them all a small amount.

“At least you two can get some sleep,” he said.

“Not you?”

“Not until I know,” he said. “And then I’ll be running around packing.”

“Unless they don’t need you.”

He rolled his eyes and snorted, and drank down his glass before pouring another.

“Watch out—you drink too much for the wrong reasons,” Mary said.

He glowered at her, but shrugged. “Fair enough. I’ve got to start thinking to the future, now.”

“Mmm?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, quickly—but she caught the smile. She and Anthea exchanged glances and smiled to each other, letting him pretend he’d kept his secret to himself.

Baby Em, finished, flailed and grumbled and growled. Mary checked her nappy, changed her from the tote full of supplies at her ankles, and tried to settle her again. “Come on, come on,” she said, frustrated. “Sleep, you stroppy little sprog. Mummy’s tired. Daddy’s tired.”

“But God bless the child who’s got her own,” Anthea sang, huskily.

Mycroft prodded her with one slippered foot. “Bad Agent. Bad. Shame—shall I get a rolled up newspaper to swat you with?”

She laughed. “Try it.”

He looked at Mary. “Bullied,” he said. “By my own top aide. It’s unfair.” He looked at little Em, then said, “Give her to me. I’m up for the night regardless, I suspect.”

She cocked her head. “You’re sure?”

“Certain. I’ve dandled babies before. Really, you have no idea how often Mummy counted on me to take care of Sherlock when he was difficult. I used to be quite good at it.”

She nodded, and handed the girl over, along with the throw she’d been using. “There you are, then.”

He stood, cradling the child, and found an armchair. He settled himself, stretching the child over his chest, with the blanket around her. “Shhh,” he said. “Shhh. I’ll sing to you, all right?”

“No carols,” Anthea muttered. “I’m trying to eat, here. No more carols.”

“I wasn’t going to,” he sniffed. “I’m going to sing the one I used to use to put Sherlock to sleep.” And he began…

_When I find myself in times of trouble,_

_Mother Mary comes to me_

_Speaking words of wisdom, let it be…_

Mary snorted. Anthea giggled. Little Em, though, gave a happy little croon, and cuddled close to the man’s chest, soaking in the vibration and the gentle music.

“Damn,” Mary whispered. “I don’t believe it.”

“It’s a knack,” he said, quickly, and returned to his singing.

“I’ll say,” she said. “No wonder you’re internationally indispensable. Did you sing to Netanyahu, too?”

Anthea giggled, Mycroft rolled his eyes, and Mary sighed. She collected the bag of baby supplies, and put them down by Mycroft’s ankles. She covered them both a bit more securely with the throw—and to his flustered embarrassment she dropped a kiss on his forehead, then padded out, heading for her well deserved rest.

Anthea and Mycroft sat together. He kept on singing.

She made more chestnuts.

The baby slipped into sleep.

“You sleep, too,” Anthea said, softly. “I’m here till three, then my relief will come. You can rest.”

“The call…”

“It it comes, you’ll get it. I can take the baby up, if you like.”

“No. Leave her. She might wake if you move her.”

She nodded, and waited, and kept watch over her flock by night.

She was still there at three sound asleep, watched over in her turn by her relief. When he woke her he put one finger to his lips and cocked his head. She looked backward and smiled to see Mycroft, sound asleep, with the baby still in his arms.

“They didn’t call him in?”

“Nope,” he said, softly. “He got lucky this time. They sent word that there’s been a sudden outbreak of peace.”

“Thank God,” she said, and went to bed.

 

 **Nota Bene:** All sorts of stuff.

[Coventry Carol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltVWs4jDYsw): This can be so sweet and soft and gentle...but the words are not. I picked one Anthea would approve of--it's fierce and eerie and spooky.

[Silent Night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87q5dmW6zDg): This version, by Sinead O'Connor, aches and is lovely and rueful and longing.

[Entre le Boeuf et L'ane Gris](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRQCXcaD59M): Very plain--but you can actually make out the words properly, which for us English speakers is nice. At least we can tell what each French word is!

[Shalom Aleichem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXFzY_NR9jk): Really cool version of a liturgical piece that goes back to the 16th C or thereabouts.

[Let It Be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eof2c5fTcI8): There are a number of covers of this, plus of course the original versions. I decided I liked Ray Charles' gruff, tired, world-worn bluesy version best.


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